The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will feature a “multi-region open-world”, “hand-crafted non-linear quests”, Kinect voice commands for spell casting and quick-switching in combat, and Smart Glass support for inventory management and character development.

A trailer demonstrating horse riding, sailing and combat along with the announcement. Watch it below. Find a fact sheet below that.

Gameplay Trailer

The Beginning

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – a fantasy RPG with a character-driven, non-linear story set in an open world and featuring meaningful player choices, tactical combat and rich, living environments.

Promise to gamers

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the final installment in what has become a highly-acclaimed modern RPG saga. The RED team has set out to make The Witcher 3 richer, larger, deeper – a breakthrough in quality that takes the franchise to new heights. A masterwork of storytelling and gameplay, The Witcher 3 is everything an RPG fan could crave.

With The Witcher 1 and 2, CD Projekt RED produced robust, high-quality, modern RPGs, winning broad acclaim and earning a loyal following. The Witcher 3 honors these roots, taking CD Projekt RED’s storytelling flair and combining it with new game mechanics and – most notably – an open, living world.

Story

The world is in chaos. The air is thick with tension and the smoke of burnt villages. The fearsome Empire of Nilfgaard has struck again, ravaging the hapless Northern Kingdoms. The once-mighty who tried to use Geralt for their own gain are now gone. In these uncertain times, no one can say what fortune holds in store, who will bring peace to the world and who will cause it only misery. But a force darker and deadlier emerges. The petty men and women commanding tin-plated armies fail to understand that their conflict is child’s play compared to the Wild Hunt, the otherworldly threat which now looms. These ghastly spectral riders have for ages plagued humankind, bringing misery to the world. Yet this time the Wild Hunt seeks one person in particular: the one individual Destiny itself bestowed upon Geralt, the one soul Geralt considers kin.

Features:
• The grand finale to the legend of Geralt of Rivia
• A standalone adventure easily accessible to new players
• Meaningful choices with consequences that change the story and the game world
• Quests and main story threads that can be resolved in any order or completed in parallel
• Unforgettable quests deeply linked with the core storyline and designed with care to draw
players in
• A breathtaking cinematic introduction illustrating the game background
• Unique atmosphere, memorable characters and gritty dialogue
• 36 different final gameworld states and three different playable epilogues

Open world

The setting for Geralt’s greatest adventure? A vast, rich, completely open world. By setting the game in this open world, we have fulfilled our vision of the RPG, adding the last element needed to create complete immersion and true non-linearity.

Features:
• A vast open world – 35 times larger than that in The Witcher 2 Multiple ecosystems and cultures that players can move between at will
• Regions with different inspirations and deep cultural references, each with a distinct feel
• Free exploration unspoiled by loading times

Living world

This world is populated with intelligent inhabitants and animated by new mechanics that make it a dynamic, living, breathing place. As players travel the world, witnessing many a sunrise or sunset, enduring torrential rains or sweltering heat, they see predators hunting their prey, villages defending themselves against monsters, lovers meeting by moonlight. The new in-game economy system varies the price of goods based on surrounding conditions or their place of origin relative to Geralt’s current whereabouts in the world: the price of fish might differ depending on distance from water, and a village lying on a trade route for trappers and hunters might have many tanneries and leather workers, affecting the price of crafting components and armor.

Features:
• A world shaped by the player’s decisions, but which, left to itself, goes on living
• A realistic day and night cycle
• A dynamic weather system
• A living economy
• A unique, deep, consistent and expansive game world based on that described by Andrzej Sapkowski

Combat

The new combat system in The Witcher 3 has been redesigned in order to combine traditional RPG elements with the speed and precision of a dedicated fighting game. Smooth and responsive, the system gives players full control of Geralt’s blade, challenging them to match their reflexes against those of a master swordsman. They will feel what it’s like to be a true witcher, the ultimate monster slayer. Players familiar with the combat mechanics in The Witcher 2 will find that every aspect of combat has been approached anew, from a fresh perspective, expanded and polished, yet the spirit of combat from the previous game has been retained.

Combat features:
• A dynamic, tactical combat system rooted in traditional RPG systems
• Combat complexity based on a variety of actions at the player’s disposal, not on correct attack sequencing
• A Witcher Senses system bringing new tactical depth to combat
• Monsters, each with their own lore, posing unique hunting challenges and responding to changes in the environment

RPG Mechanics

The Witcher 3 integrates a robust RPG system into the heart of gameplay. Stats, abilities and items have clear and intuitive consequences, changing Geralt and shaping his encounters: a new sword might fell swarming foes en masse, while an enhanced Axii Sign could sway a merchant in negotiations. A tutorial eases players into this system, guiding them through a smooth learning curve as they master the game world.

Features:
• A tutorial built into the game, allowing players to dive into the world of the Witcher with ease
• Involving investigations and rewarding hunts through the Witcher Senses mechanic
• A completely rewritten RPG mechanic allowing players to see the influence of statistics on gameplay
• An expanded Sign casting system: each of the 5 Signs has two different modes of use, creating even more possibilities in combat and challenging players to use magic in creative ways
• A highly-intuitive Alchemy system
• An expanded character development system
• Advanced Crafting mechanics

Visuals

The Witcher 3 is the best-looking RPG to date. Built from the ground up for modern PC hardware and taking advantage of the power of next-generation consoles, the game makes no compromises on quality and delivers stunningly beautiful visuals. Matching the level of titles in other genres where graphics have traditionally been superior (high-end shooters and action games), The Witcher 3 sets new visual standards for the RPG.